During my recent visit to Franciscan St. Francis Health System, some of the nurses proudly called themselves “Kaizen Queens” (and there was one self-described “Kaizen Princess”) although they also use the term “Kaizeneer” that Franciscan uses more broadly.

In the endoscopy department, they have implemented more than 750 improvements in the past four years (in a team of 30 people). That sets the bar really high for the rest of the Franciscan system and for healthcare organizations everywhere.

One of the Kaizen Queens wore a badge holder that proudly proclaimed that she had implemented more than 200 Kaizens. This means she either initiated the process or was part of a team – they share credit, recognition, and rewards quite freely.

One of her colleagues described a Kaizen where the first identified a problem – patients who needed a scope down their throat for a certain test were asked to swallow a thick, viscous lubricant that was purchased from the scope manufacturer. The patients hated the goop – the taste and the texture (as if having a scope down your throat isn’t bad enough). She said it was like, sorry, “flavored snot.”

The nurse had an idea one day – would applesauce work to replace the lubricant? The five-step process used (and described in our books) does not include rushing to test an idea.

The nurse talked with her colleagues and the manager. She reached out to the scope maker to see if applesauce would cause any problems. Everybody gave a thumbs up to trying the applesauce.

A common theme across the departments we visited was that managers rarely say no to ideas. Saying no discourages people. Possible improvements are proven out (or disproven) through testing and practice (following the PDSA cycle of Plan, Do, Study, Adjust). Managers do occasionally say “no” if an idea would violate regulations or other guidelines. But, they then work together to find a different idea that would solve their problem.

In this case, the use of applesauce was indeed an improvement. Like most Kaizens, it was a win/win/win/win – using applesauce saves the hospital $30,000 a year, it’s preferred by the patients, it creates a less frustrating environment for the staff, and it doesn’t negatively impact the quality of the scope testing.

In many hospitals, there would have been a laundry list of reasons for a manager to say no to the idea. “Just use the standard lubricant.” “Oh, patients don’t hate it that much.” “Why can’t you just follow the standard work?” “We’ll have our quality committee discuss that.” Leaders who say things like that stifle improvement and innovation and damage morale.

I asked one of the endoscopy nurses what would happen if she, for some reason, ended up in a workplace without a manager who encouraged and supported Kaizen. She said she would probably try to push Kaizen and bring ideas forward for a while (thanks to her intrinsic motivation). But, if the manager wasn’t into it, she’d probably just stop trying.

There are so many more stories from that day. I’m going to write more blog posts and Joe and I plan on sharing video and audio from the interviews in different ways. Stay tuned.